Dylan Larkin’s clutch gene is real, and the numbers now back it up

Dylan Larkin has always worn the weight of Detroit on his shoulders. Not just the “C” on his chest — the expectation that when the game tightens, when the margin for error disappears, when everything feels like it’s tilting toward disappointment — he is the one who tilts it back.

Wednesday night in Toronto, he did it again. Larkin didn’t just score the overtime winner against the Maple Leafs. He didn’t just steal two points in a season where every point feels like oxygen. He also tied Sergei Fedorov for the most overtime goals in Red Wings history with 12.

For years, “clutch” was something you felt with Larkin more than something you could prove. You saw it in breakaways with a game on the line. In those full-speed bursts through the neutral zone late in the third. In the way he seemed to want the puck when everyone else looked relieved just to survive another shift.

Now, the math has caught up to the instinct.

Larkin has built a career on moments that matter. These aren’t empty goals in 6–1 games. These are season-shaping goals. Standings-altering goals. “We needed something and he gave it to us” goals. When the Red Wings are hanging on to relevance — as they have been for what feels like forever — Larkin is the one dragging them forward.

Another overtime goal from Dylan Larkin, another piece of Red Wings history

Tying Fedorov isn’t just symbolic. It reframes Larkin’s place in franchise history. Fedorov was elegance and inevitability, a Hall of Famer whose greatness felt effortless. Larkin’s greatness has been forged in something harsher: rebuilds, false starts, lottery years, coaching changes, constant roster churn.

Larkin didn’t inherit a dynasty. He inherited a crater. And yet, when the lights are brightest, his response has been the same: Give me the puck.

There is a certain cruelty to being the best player on a team that’s still finding its ceiling. It means your biggest moments often arrive in games that must be won just to stay afloat. There’s no cushion. No safety net. No “we’ll get them next week.” Every overtime is a referendum on whether your season still has a pulse. That’s where Larkin has made his home.

This season, in particular, has felt urgent in a way Detroit hasn’t experienced in years. The Red Wings aren’t rebuilding anymore — they’re supposed to be here. They’re supposed to matter. Every blown lead feels heavier. Every missed chance feels louder. And in that pressure, Larkin hasn’t shrunk. He’s sharpened.

The goal in Toronto was vintage Larkin: speed, decisiveness, no hesitation. He didn’t wait for the moment to unfold. He created it. That’s what separates “good” from “franchise.” That’s what turns a captain into a compass.

Twelve overtime goals. Tied with Fedorov. In a franchise built on legends, that’s not a footnote. It’s a statement.

The Red Wings have been searching for proof that this era has its own pillars — not echoes of the past, but something new to build around. Larkin keeps providing it, one pressure-packed moment at a time.

The clutch gene was never a myth. Now it’s in the record book.